Hilda and Pearl

by Alice Mattison

  He didn’t comment on how long I’d been gone or how for all the length of my outing I had nothing to show for it but soup greens. I took off my coat and got my soup pot out from the cabinet and washed the chicken and cut it up. Nathan followed me into the kitchen. Racket was just falling asleep. She’d drooled all over his shirt. He looked worn out.

  “We’re going to have to get Mike over here,” I said. Now it seems nonsensical that I talked like this. I should have gone to bed and cried for a week, getting up only to polish my nails.

  Nathan winced. “Mike,” he said.

  “I’m going to call them and tell them to come here.”

  “They won’t come.”

  “I’ll make them come. He’s been hitting her.”

  “You saw Pearl?”

  “Yes. Mike hit her.”

  Nathan carried the baby out of the room, and I heard him take her into the bedroom. I thought he was putting her to sleep in her bassinet, but when I got the soup going and went to see, he was lying on our bed with her curled next to him. He was facing her, his knees drawn up, and she was in the curve formed by his body. They were both asleep.

  When I wasn’t making a plan or giving orders, that week, my insides hurt. It felt as if a tight, rough piece of twine were cutting into me and tying off some part of me deep inside. I couldn’t reach it no matter how I might try. So I kept planning. As long as I was organizing something—figuring out when to call Pearl and Mike’s house, something like that—the twine loosened a little.

  Once I woke in the night and felt like a forsaken wife, someone whose sexual beauty had been denied, as though Nathan had preferred the smell of Pearl’s vaginal secretions to mine, or preferred the shape of her breasts. I was devastated. I hadn’t known I cared about anything like that. I’ve always thought my body was all right, wished I were thinner, but you know how it is. I wouldn’t have thought I’d mind if Nathan or anyone else preferred the shape of different breasts. But I did mind. I sobbed silently next to him for a long time, feeling big tears slide one by one down my cheeks and nose. Nathan hadn’t made love to me for a long time—not since he’d made love to Pearl, apparently. We’d had sex only once since Racket was born, right after the doctor said it was all right. But I wasn’t interested. I was so tired from taking care of Racket, I didn’t want to be touched by anyone, and I was angry with everybody then—with Nathan, too.

  Now, lying there crying, I wanted him to make love to me. I thought that if I cried louder he might wake up and soothe me, or at least touch me, but he didn’t, and after a while Racket woke and I shuffled into the kitchen and began warming the bottle, holding her instead of my husband.

  But that was the only time. By morning I didn’t want him. I didn’t want him to find me beautiful or sexy or attractive, didn’t want to be beautiful or sexy, simply wanted to make things happen. I read the newspaper—about the battles in Spain—and wondered whether my lust to take action was like what people in those battles felt, or whether they really were fighting for reasons. If I’d been a general there would have been a battle, and hundreds dead.

  On Wednesday morning, after Nathan left for school I called Mike. I knew Pearl would be at work, and I knew he stayed home Wednesday mornings because he worked late on Wednesdays. “Hello,” he said.

  “Mike, it’s Hilda.”

  “How are you?” he said—without feeling, as if it were a business call.

  “Fine, thank you. How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “Mike,” I said, “I want you and Pearl to come here on Sunday afternoon.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Hilda. Nothing personal.”

  “I don’t expect you to think it’s a good idea. I think if we don’t sit down and have a conversation—all four of us—someday we’ll wish we had.”

  There was a long silence. “I have to deal with this myself. I’m sorry.”

  “You’ll never forgive either of them,” I said, though I’d yelled at Pearl for talking about forgiveness.

  “And you?” he said, and suddenly he was furious. “You can forget it? Maybe that’s easy for you, sister, but not for me.”

  “It’s not easy for me, Mike,” I said.

  “There’s no point in talking about it.”

  “Mike,” I said. I was cheating but it was the only thing I could think of. “What if we can prove it’s your baby?”

  “There’s no way to prove it,” he said coldly.

  “Maybe that’s not true,” I said. “Come over Sunday. Anyway, you and Nathan—look, you’re brothers.”

  “Not all brothers get along, Hilda,” said Mike.

  “What about your mother?” I said, trying everything. “Someday she’ll die—we’re going to go to the funeral and not speak to one another?”

  “Now, nobody needs to say anything about this to Mom,” he said, as if it fit with what I was saying. “Pearl and I can solve our problems without her.”

  “For God’s sake, I’m not going to tell her,” I said, “but sooner or later she’ll wonder. She’s always asking Nathan how you are.”

  He was silent for a while.

  “What time Sunday?” he said.

  “Two o’clock,” I said. “Will you tell Pearl?”

  “Of course I’ll tell Pearl.” I hung up. Racket had been crying for a while. I picked her up from her bassinet and lay down on the couch with her, rocking her in my arms and crying over her, then just holding her on my stomach. I lay back and stared at her skinny face with its big dark eyes. “You do look like a monkey,” I said. She had no hair then—she’d lost the hair she was born with and had just a dark fuzz on her head. She lay on my stomach clutching the placket of my blouse. As usual, she was damp. Then she smiled. I pulled myself up and began making faces to get her to smile some more. “I’m glad you can’t talk,” I said to her. “You have a nice idea of the world.”

  On Sunday I wasn’t sure they’d come, but they did. They managed to look as if they had arrived separately, even though of course they came through the door one after the other. I suppose people who are together are usually one step apart and maybe Mike and Pearl were two steps apart, something tiny that you don’t see but sense. I had put out a candy dish and a bowl of fruit the way I did whenever company came. I took their coats and carried them into the bedroom. Pearl had had her hair trimmed. She didn’t look at Nathan and he had barely spoken when they came in, but stood humble and eager, like an innkeeper welcoming guests when business has been poor.

  I sat down on the floor, for some reason. Mike had sat down in the middle of the couch—looking down, not speaking—so there was no room for anybody else. Nathan had been standing in front of one chair, so he sat back down again. That left the other chair, but Pearl sat down on the floor opposite me. There was silence, and for a moment I was afraid I would laugh, the kind of nervous laugh that comes to the lips at the worst time, usually when you have to tell someone about a death. But I also wanted to laugh because they had obeyed me, even though what I’d asked them to do was preposterous.

  “Would you like coffee?” I said.

  “Don’t go to trouble,” said Pearl in an extremely low voice, like a child who has been coached by her mother.

  Of course that was the signal to go and make coffee but I didn’t. I just forgot, then and there, as soon as I’d spoken. When they finally left, later, I went into the kitchen and saw the four cups and saucers laid out, and the percolator with coffee grounds and water already measured.

  “Where’s Racket?” said Mike gruffly. I was surprised that he spoke and surprised at what he said.

  “Asleep,” I said. “I hope she’ll sleep for a while.”

  He nodded succinctly, as if it was information he needed for a practical purpose. He was leaning forward, his knees spread.

  “I’m afraid you’re never going to speak to me again,” said Nathan. He sounded deeply sympathetic and respectful, talking to his brother, but also as if this was a little amusing. After t
hat afternoon, I often noticed that bitter amusement in Nathan’s tone. I could never remember whether he’d always had it, or whether it started here. It made a joke of things, but not in the way that sounds. It was as if he was saying that God would be amused at the awkwardness of His creatures. “I mean, Michael, I wouldn’t blame you.”

  Mike shrugged. As we sat there, I was horrified not at what they’d done—Nathan and Pearl—but at what I’d done. In some ways it seemed less allowable, more shocking, to make such people sit in a room together than for them to have sneaked off to bed somewhere in the first place. I felt as nervous as any of them.

  “Pearl,” I said, “when did you have your friend?”

  “My friend?”

  “When did you menstruate?”

  “I—”

  I went into the bedroom and came back with a small calendar. They were all looking at me. “I think we can figure this out,” I said. “I’m not saying this was a wonderful thing that happened, but for this baby’s sake, this new baby, I think we have to—we have to—” I couldn’t explain.

  “It’s Nathan’s,” said Pearl quietly, and I saw Mike stir and turn red.

  “How do you know?” I said.

  Pearl didn’t remember when she and Mike had had sex. She was sure she would have remembered if it was soon after October eighth, the day of the rally. “That was the day—” she said.

  “I know,” I said. “But when was your last period? Maybe you were already pregnant when this—this unfortunate incident—happened.”

  Pearl was snuffling. “I didn’t have it when we went on the picnic,” she said. “I had it the day I went to the dentist.”

  I looked at the calendar, counting and figuring, and I didn’t like the way it was coming out. But it was a little calendar, and I was sitting on the floor with it. Nobody could see it but me. Finally it became clear: Pearl had had a period on September twenty-third. I could see that she might perfectly well have gotten pregnant on October eighth, but on the other hand, she might have been pregnant already. That was certainly a possibility.

  “I ought to be able to get this straight,” I said. “I got a ninety-two on the Biology Regents.”

  “I don’t think they covered this topic,” said Nathan.

  “Of course they did.” I counted once more. I looked around at the three of them, all flushed in different ways, all staring at me, staring down at me—Pearl was on the floor like me, but she is so much taller that she also looked down. Mike was gazing intently. I’m not an especially intelligent person, but at that moment I felt intelligent. I knew that whatever I said would go. None of them would ever do the bit of arithmetic I was doing. None of them would check me.

  “Well, that settles it, then,” I said. “September twenty-third? You’re sure? Then it’s Mike’s baby. No doubt about it.”

  I really had gotten a 92 on the biology exam, but I had no idea whether anyone on earth could pinpoint a pregnancy as I had just done. But I had done it. The signal was that Mike sat up and took his face out of his hands. I could see the marks of his fingers on his cheeks, he had been pressing so hard. He believed me, at least at that moment.

  Somehow, we talked about other things after that, although I don’t think Mike spoke much—I don’t think anyone spoke much except me. I talked about Spain. Nathan mumbled something about Hitler and Germany, and I suppose it occurred to all of us that this baby Pearl was carrying might have been born in Germany, to a society that would condemn it for its Jewishness, that the least we could do was welcome it. For a moment I was afraid Nathan might ask Mike again about the notes to a speech Mike had taken down, but he didn’t.

  Pearl spoke only when I made her answer a question, but at one point I mentioned that the son of a neighbor had talked about volunteering to go to Spain, and ritualistically I said I hoped he’d be all right. “I hope so,” said Pearl. That was all, but she said it in her regular voice, not this new timid voice she’d adopted since going to bed with Nathan.

  And that made me angry with her. Had she forgiven herself so quickly for spoiling my life? For my pain came rushing back to me, and it seemed that she and Nathan had flaunted—were flaunting—their passion, his rejection of me. It had been self-flagellation to bring her there. I scrambled to my feet. “I hear the baby.”

  Nathan looked up. “I don’t,” he said.

  “Well, I do.”

  But Pearl stood gracefully and followed me, walking between the two men, not looking at either of them. I let her catch up to me and we went to the bedroom together. Racket was still sleeping, her thumb in her mouth. We both moved over to the crib and looked in. I saw that Pearl was crying and I took out my handkerchief and handed it to her.

  “It’s clean,” I said in a whisper.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered back, and blew her nose and wiped her eyes. We stood there at the crib looking, as though Racket were scheduled to do something unusual.

  “Your hair looks good,” I whispered, though I was still angry.

  “Thank you.”

  Then I thought of something. “Pearl, do you want the braid? Your hair—do you want it?”

  She looked at me as if she didn’t know what I meant for a moment. “You have it?”

  “I didn’t throw it out.”

  “Nathan gave it to you?”

  “It was right there,” I said. “I saw it right away. What did you think?”

  “I don’t know. I thought—maybe he kept it.”

  I thought of telling her what happened when he saw it but I didn’t. I said, “I put it away.”

  “I don’t want it,” said Pearl, still whispering.

  I was silent for a while. Then I said, “So here we are.”

  She stared down at Racket and smoothed her blanket. “I hope I die giving birth,” she said.

  I put my hand on her arm. “Stop it,” I said, still in a whisper, as sternly as possible.

  “You take the baby,” Pearl whispered.

  “I’m sorry, Pearl,” I said. “You’re the mother.”

  She was quiet for a long time, and now Racket did begin to stir. “Don’t be angry with me forever,” she said. “I couldn’t bear it.”

  “I’m not angry,” I said in my own voice, because now Racket was awake. My voice sounded loud after the whispering. It sounded as if I’d shouted.

  7

  “WHY DID YOU CUT YOUR HAIR, PEARLIE?” THEY SAID AT work, especially Ruby, who sat at the next desk. Mr. Glynnis was known to call them the Jewels.

  “I got tired of long hair,” said Pearl.

  Everyone accepted that but Ruby. “You always said you’d never cut your hair,” she said. “If I had hair like that, I’d never cut it.”

  Pearl looked up at her. Ruby was passing her desk and had stopped to sort papers she was taking to different parts of the building. They hadn’t even been talking about hair. Ruby filed the letters going to Mr. Glynnis between her first finger and middle finger, the ones for Mr. Carmichael between her middle finger and ring finger. She had a system. When she had letters to go downstairs, where the company now had an accountant working, she put them between her ring finger and her pinkie. Ruby was short and her fingers were thick and stubby. Pearl had always liked the way she held them out with the letters gripped between them. Now Ruby looked back in a funny way as she left the cubicle. Over the partition Pearl could hear the sounds of the floor, where women packaged blouses and men hauled boxes. Soon Ruby returned, her hand empty, and stopped again at Pearl’s desk. “I hope I didn’t speak out of turn,” she said in a low voice. “I think your hair looks very pretty.”

  “I didn’t mind,” said Pearl. She had finally had it trimmed at the beauty parlor. No one there had asked questions after all.

  “Long hair must have been a nuisance,” Ruby went on.

  “My husband liked it better before,” Pearl said. If that was true, she didn’t know. She and Mike were still barely speaking. The way things were at home reminded Pearl of a time when sh
e’d been in high school. Her father had caught her with a boy he didn’t like and had threatened her. They didn’t speak for weeks except for things they couldn’t help saying: “Come eat.” “Mama wants you.” Once Pearl watched for ten minutes while he searched for his hat, and didn’t tell him she could see it on the floor behind the dining room table, tipped sideways where it had fallen.

  “He was angry that you cut it?” said Ruby.

  “Yes.”

  Pearl thought her grief might kill her or kill the baby. She kept imagining herself shrieking. When Mr. Carmichael called her into his office to dictate a letter, Pearl could hardly wait for the moment when she could sit down. His habit was to keep her in the doorway while he explained where the letter was going, as if she might object to writing to a department store in Trenton. After she nodded, he’d clear a place for her to sit, moving papers from one chair to another. Waiting, an hour or so after her conversation with Ruby, Pearl was afraid she would hurl her face against the doorjamb, slamming it into the wood.

  “I want to write to Mr. Montgomery,” said Mr. Carmichael. “Mr. John Montgomery, is it? James?”

  “I’ll check,” said Pearl. “I think John.”

  “John, John, yes, certainly John.” It took time for Mr. Carmichael to stop circling a letter and land on it, Pearl and Ruby used to say—though before, Pearl didn’t mind. He was patient with her own inadequate, slow shorthand. Now as she finally sat down, instead of just wishing she were dead or worrying that the baby would shrivel up in her unhappy body, Pearl had a new thought: she could tell Ruby a partial truth.

  “I want to tell you something,” Pearl said to her later that day. She and Ruby brought sandwiches from home and always ate lunch together in a little room at the back of the floor where cartons were stacked. “Killington,” Pearl would read off the cartons over and over again—a supplier of boxes. Now Ruby was sitting between Pearl and the window. The boxes looked dusty in the bright winter light. “I’ve fallen in love,” Pearl said. “I’ve fallen in love with my brother-in-law.”